[dbsk] withinreach

title: withinreachwritten by: ezyls_girlrated: r, for dubious sex. =|summary: jaejoong doesn't like his management very much (at all) and yunho is disappointed, but only by proxy. /JaeHo. /cashier!Jaejoong. /cold!Yunho. /AU though probably not much at the moment.

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warnings: my failcheap!porn. incoherency, i.e. this is confusing on many levels, and possibly bad characterization because all of DBSK looks the same to me except like Changmin who I only know because he looks like Junno. notes: OMFU so like i actually wrote DBSK. X____X This is for the hanakotoba prompt challenge on the spechulspechul Pointless But Original forum. My flower was the kaneshon (carnation). unbeta'd because i wrote this today and in a bad mood, and references with all due respect to Honey and Clover, 4th Avenue Cafe by l'arc~en~ciel, and Shalala Tambourine, Shige's new song from Winter Party Diamond DVD. But I'm sure you didn't need to know all that. :B ~1500 words. I'm also trying out a new style.

And with that, I present to you, withinreach.

Y: Why do you always run away when the situation gets awkward? M: Because you come chasing.

~Honey and Clover

there is a brief, inexplicable heat involved. it travels between the two of them like an electromagnet pulling a bullet train, over fields of desire, blank urban skyscrapers that lock down the last of their rationalism, simmering to a stop underneath a sky full of dark dreams but never quite giving them enough time to rest. as yunho’s fingers brush over a spot on his inner thigh, jaejoong feels himself shudder, feels it like a shock to his bones, like someone’s taken a match and lit his breath on fire, feels it and knows that he’s drowning in it; the sheer force of it knocks him down. he arches into yunho’s touch, hands in yunho’s hair, bites his own lip to keep from crying out. his lips are already marked by yunho’s mouth, impossibly red and swollen enough to make him look like a little girl with too much lipstick smacked on from a mother’s makeup drawer. it is strangely sickening, and he entertains the thought for a little while longer until yunho’s teeth clamp down on his skin and fuck, he doesn’t care. not any more.

another pop of the buttons, and the sleeve of his shirt is pushed off the side of the couch to dangle on one side of his arm. yunho licks a stripe down his neck and latches teeth onto a nipple, leaving him groaning audibly and noisily, for more air, for more touch, for more of yunho.

and it is almost a completely viable ideal, because there is no escape.

there is no escape, yunho’s fingers say, as he feels them drag down his skin, the possession of it raw and full and unstoppable. there is no escape, yunho’s hips say as he fucks jaejoong from the top, both of them panting hard breaths as the force of his thrusts increase. none at all, no matter what you do, THEREISNOESCAPE.

and for a split second, jaejoong sees heaven.

it is a very beautiful heaven.

(but he cannot touch it, he only sees it, through the dusty, cracked glass of a small square window with no frame, directly above yunho’s head. the light is already beginning to fade.)

don’t leave me, he says, almost as an afterthought, don’t leave me by myself. or i think i might die.

then die, yunho’s laugh is a slap to his face.

it’s opening time, 5 am. takeuchi from the night shift gives jaejoong a tired pat on the back before he leaves from the back door, stepping into pale-colored dawn.

young people on the streets are beginning to file in from the door, stretching faces to accommodate sleep-filtered yawns and bobbing to low music on ipods. they’re here to meet with their friends and grab a canned coffee or two. school doesn’t start for another hour, there’s no rush. older versions of those, graduate students who are beginning to see the face of the world, stumble away lugging plastic bags full of frozen dinners from the freezer aisle without saying much; the midterm is today. morning bikers stack their steeds by the rack and grab energy bars from the shelf below the cash register, there’s no time to socialize if you still want to catch the empty road before rush hour. elementary-school kids whose working-class parents are out the door by 4 am gaze longingly at the candy shelf before rushing towards the baked goods for their breakfast. hung-over men who look like they do not wish to be anywhere but in bed sidle over to the baked goods too, in search for bottled water. the elderly, back from their morning exercise-routines, examine prices of the vegetables in the fresh groceries aisle; the driver of the grocery truck is a little late this morning (he had gone out drinking with his buddies at a tambourine-themed karaoke bar last night) and some of the old women are worried that they won’t make it home in time for the reruns of last night’s sumo-wrestling match on tv.

jaejoong sits there, behind the desk, watching them all, as he rings up their money and orders and receipts.

outside, on the window sill of the combini, a single petal from a yellow carnation dances in the breeze made by the motion of the door, flapping in-and-out.

the sun rises.

jaejoong has turned into a robot. he’s about half a minute away from mental shut-down.

at this point, it’s ultimately impossible to care about anything else, believe in any other thought, but to keep himself out of the street and the incoming traffic, because he’s gone down through most of his end of troubles, ended up as a one of the Rich and Famous, dollied out a million different I Love Who’s and went through several major correctional facilities for the fashionably-inept, and somehow stranded up (or is it down? his sense of direction’s still a little fuzzy) in the middle of japan, serving tea at a combini in a district filled to the top with retirement homes.

go figure this one out, changmin says with a smile. our hyung, up-or-down in the middle of nagano as a tour guide for white people.

Old White People, jaejoong corrects with a frown.

and of course, he would try, but none of them are within reach.

dial a number? sure, he’d just have to hack a payphone or borrow someone’s hand phone and risk identification. write a letter? junsu might mistake the kanji for english, better not risk it. belt out a few lines from Mirotic on the streets, get kidnapped by paparazzi and find himself home in a box for christmas? management would just be lovely about that, they would. while foaming at the mouth and reforming his vacation to never.

jaejoong hates management, more than a rebellious child would hate their stuffy and old-fashioned middle-aged aunt.

the first thing he had to learn when he came to japan was how to count properly and say please without feeling like a complete outsider. he counted himself lucky that tohoshinki had happened when it did, and that he had a vague idea about how to use a cash register from the dramas, or he would have been helpless. putting on medical sunglasses and a tuque and growing out a moustache could all be explained easily, and the store owner was very nice about it, promising his identity a secret.

and like this, jaejoong is able to fool himself into believing that he might be able to live a normal life. a rather difficult dream, but he’ll take it. it’s all he has.

the middle-aged woman taps an impatient nail on the counter. when jaejoong hands her twenty yen in change, she grumbles something about Young People These Days, and jaejoong smiles a bit offhandedly to remind her that he's still here. his moustache is beginning to feel scratchy on his face.

jaejoong gets off work at three in the afternoon. he buys dinner at the combini and then takes the public transport bus home, giving up his seat for the senior citizens and reading newspapers over people's shoulders. the building manager gives him a stout wave as he makes his way up the elevator, to room 312 on the third floor with the windows facing the west.

for every single day that he’s been living in this apartment, someone has stuck a pretty flower on his doorknob, the stem cut off at a professional angle and then twined around the metal circle below the keyhole. for the first time, there’s a note attached to the flower.

3rd Avenue Café, 7:00 PM. he almost fails to recognize the writing—it’s from a hand that he hasn’t seen in so long. (but he does.)

why not the fourth avenue, jaejoong thinks aloud, and it’s with a helpless smile that he understands.

the sun sets and kim jaejoong, the former rising god, sets with it.

yunho's expression is one of complete incredulity. he offers to buy jaejoong a cup of coffee, and jaejoong, unable to think of anything else, accepts with a hesitant nod. what are you doing, he wants to ask, are you here to ruin my life again?

instead, yunho opens his mouth and informs him of how worried everyone has been for the past three months. you didn't even call. couldn't you have at least written a letter?

junsu would've mistaken the kanji for english, he begins stubbornly, and i called changmin--

Stop running away from me, yunho says in a whisper.

i didn’t run away from you, jaejoong tells yunho, and both of them are very sure that jaejoong is lying, but only yunho says it out loud, something about sex that jaejoong doesn't want to hear about.

well, i’m sure i don’t have to remind you; yunho says gruffly, of how much of a complete idiot you look like right now. come back. i am very disappointed in you.

go to hell, jaejoong says right back, i’m staying right here and there’s nothing you can do about it.

yunho is silent for a beat. both of them sip their coffees, fuming.

and then for the first time in a while, they smile at each other.

I can keep sending you flowers, the card reads.

i think i’d like that, jaejoong thinks to himself, and then writes it down next to yunho’s message.

the petals of the carnation ruffle in the nonexistent breeze, and jaejoong puts the canned teas on the combini shelf back into the freezer. it’s past closing time.

and yet, the sun has not gone down.

note: ~kaneshon. In hanakotoba, the Japanese language of flowers, a carnation alludes to disappointment.